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There is no need for any India EV policy now: Nitin Gadkari

The government has decided against formulating an electric vehicle (EV) policy. A breather to many carmakers that are unprepared for an abrupt shift to the clean-fuel technology.

“There is no need for any policy now,” said Nitin Gadkari, minister for road transport. He was addressing reporters along with Amitabh Kant, chief executive of government think tank NITI Aayog.

Gadkari said the policy was awaiting approval from the union cabinet. He had earlier outlined the government’s ambitious plan to shift to electric vehicles by 2030. Companies such as Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd, have been publicly voicing concerns about the proposed India EV policy.

“Everyday, new technology is coming into the market. Technology is always ahead of rules and regulations. And in India, it becomes very tough to change rules and regulations, so let there be just actions,” Kant said, explaining the reason behind the decision.

The government’s decision to have an EV policy had created uncertainty in the automobile industry for the past year, although several companies had outlined their strategies for EVs or lobbied the government to drop the idea.

Electric vehicle sales are low in India because of few available models and a lack of charging infrastructure. Sales rose 37.5% to 22,000 units in fiscal 2016 from 16,000 in the previous year, according to Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV). Only 2,000 of these were, however, cars and other four-wheelers.

To overcome some of the problems for electric vehicles, NITI Aayog, along with Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute, in their 2017 report on the future of shared, electric and connected mobility future in India, had suggested setting up “a manufacturer consortium for batteries, common components, and platforms to develop battery cell technologies and packs and to procure common components for Indian original equipment manufacturers”.

The report said that adoption of electric and shared vehicles could help India save $60 billion in diesel and petrol, along with cutting down as much as 1 gigatonne of carbon emissions by 2030.